Monday, June 22, 2009

I heard this song twice in the middle of the night over the past week. Thanks for pissing me off at 3am, CBS-FM. It's a question we New Yorkers have asked all throughout June.

BONUS: There's no footage of the CCR performing this song on You Tube, but there is a great clip of John Fogerty finally breaking 15 years of silence and performing CCR songs at the Vietnam Vet benefit on the Fourth of July 1987. This show is pretty legendary because Fogerty vowed to never do CCR songs again, and for him to break that vow at an event honoring a group which strongly identified with songs like "Fortunate Son"...well, by all accounts many tears were shed that day.

Bruce Springsteen likes breaking this song out at outdoor shows to reward fans waiting through inclement weather. He did it last month in Stockholm, Sweden.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

I must give a shout out to my pal Jack McFadden (a.k.a. Skippy) for booking such great back-to-back nights of rock at The Bell House. Thursday it was a stellar set from RobynHitchcock and the Venus 3. Friday it was The Posies, performing their great 1993 album Frosting on the Beater in its entirety. I mean, wow, what joy each of these nights brought me. It was the fourth time I've seen Hitchcock and the Venus 3, and it was by far the best. And I haven't seen The Posies since 1996 at Coney Island High on St. Mark's...which just makes me feel old. When the Beater set was over, Ken Stringfellow, Jon Auer and company came back and did a great miniset of songs from their albums--and they played every single one of my favorites from their catalog (save the production heavy "Golden Blunders.") Oh, how I love power pop heaven.

I suppose I choose "Flavor of the Month" for this week because that has always been my favorite song on Frosting on the Beater, but realistically it could have been any song either of these two bands played over the two nights.

EDIT: I just saw that The Posies did this show last night at the Gramercy Theater. Shit, if I had known that I probably would have done back-to-back Posies nights. Oh well.

BONUS: Oh yeah, I had the camera working overtime at these shows.The Posies - "Flavor of the Month"

Saturday, June 06, 2009

I must admit that I'm not a fan of The Decemberists new album The Hazards of Love, which is why I passed twice on offers of tickets to see them at Radio City Music Hall on June 10th. ColinMeloy and company are doing the entire puzzling (and at times, pompous) concept album straight through at each show, and I'm pretty sure that would drive me to distraction.

But if I had known that at the end of the night Meloy would be using guest vocalists Shara Worden (of My Brightest Diamond) and Becky Stark (of Lavender Diamond ) -- they play key female characters on The Hazards of Love -- to tackle a great song by a fellow Northwestern band, I might have reconsidered.

Jeebus, they sing the shit out of that. I've watched it 10 times this week, and two more times just embedding it in this post. Let's hope a proper live recording is released at some point.